The The staging of childbirth in the Brazilian soap opera

Abstract

This article proposes to analyze scenes of childbirth presented by Brazilian soap operas, produced and broadcasted along the past four decades by the channel Rede Globo,  aiming to identify the representation of normal birth and C-section in the corpus. We highlight that the parturition is a social and cultural event and the subjectivities which are inscribed on it are sustained in gender relations and that the media represents an important arena where power disputes are materialized. For the empirical path, we have opted for two complementary methods, the Content Analysis based on a quantitative perspective, and the Analysis of Moving Images. As main result, we identify that, although the frequency of normal birth in the corpus is higher, aspects associated to its representation, such as the place of birth, the pain expression, elements of religiously and characteristics of ethnicity and social class of the parturient, corroborate to position the C-section as the “ideal” form of giving birth. We have observed that an explicit apology for C-section was presented in a considerable part of the corpus. The cultural and symbolic legitimation of the surgical delivery by the soap opera deviates from the recommendations of the World Health Organization and contributes to build the collective imaginary regarding birth.